If traditional budgeting is the calorie counting of personal finance, then the anti-budget is the intuitive eating of personal finance.

That's Paula Pant, host of the popular Afford Anything podcast and also a successful entrepreneur and real estate investor.

I am the small and mighty real estate investor.

Currently, I have seven rental units, all of which are paid off free and clear.

In addition to being a savvy investor herself, Paula is the best I know at explaining how to think about money and how to actually achieve financial freedom.

You know, money is a physical manifestation of your values.

In this episode, you'll learn the common psychological barriers that get in the way of our financial progress.

Money is the root of all evil, which is kind of like saying a hammer is the root of all thumb

injuries.

The one most important concept of grow your wealth faster.

If you make, say, $100,000 a year and you increase your income to $150,000 a year, might be easier

to achieve than trying to cut

$35,000 out of your spending.

And Paula has a new acronym for the fire movement. Financial Independence, retire early.

I think of the acronym fire, and I have my own definition.

And now we're going to dig into all of that and more.

One of the things I respect a lot about you as a friend, as a content creator, is you're a deep thinker. I would call you, I would call you a philosopher, modern day philosopher. And this is a podcast about money and people are interested in money. And one of the things I think you articulate better than anyone I know is the first principles of money, of how we could think about it, how we can use it. And so I love to unpack that a little bit more and just get your insights on that. And the first question that I think just a good place to start is your philosophy

around afford anything about this, the name of your brand and what that means. And so can you

unpack that a little bit? Explain to people why afford anything. Afford anything is the notion that you

can afford anything but not everything. So it is the notion of

opportunity cost and tradeoffs. And oftentimes those opportunity costs are invisible. Often when we are

presented with a given opportunity, we consider that opportunity in a vacuum rather than thinking

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